separate channels in which their national histories have run, have been derived to them all, from the primitive times of the Christian Church, by Catholic Tradition, or Universal Christian Usage. What Ordinances can, and what cannot, be shown to be derived from Apostolical Institution by Catholic Tradition, is a question which has been disputed among Christians; but all have agreed that those Ordinances which are supported by Apostolical Institution and Catholic Tradition, are Ordinances established by the Authority of the Christian Church, and therefore Duties for all Christian men. 758. There are, in every community of Christians, forms and details of Ordinances which are not regulated by Catholic and Apostolic Usage, but by some special authority belonging to the community. Every Christian nation has such an authority belonging to it; and this Authority is the National Church. We must now consider certain Ordinances specially. CHAPTER XVI. THE LORD'S DAY. 759. THE observation of the First Day of the Week, as a day especially appropriated to worship and religious employments, is a Christian Ordinance which is supported by all the four grounds of which we have spoken; Natural Piety, Early Revelation, Apostolic Institution, and Catholic Usage. As we have already stated, it has been recognized as one of the dictates of Natural Piety that there should be stated times for the public worship of God, and this has been manifested in the practice of all nations. The portion of time set apart in this manner, in the revelation of God's will made to the Jews, was every seventh day; the Seventh Day being the Sabbath, or day of rest. In this case, the rule, by which revelation has fixed, what natural piety leaves undeterminate, has a special ground of authority for us, in that the reason given for the hebdomadal cycle is valid for all mankind, as well as for the Jews: namely, that God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh day. The first Christians were in the practice of assembling for religious purposes, on the first day of the week, the day of Christ's resurrection. We have various notices of assemblies of the disciples on that day; (John xx., 19. Acts ii., 1; xx., 7. 1 Cor. xvi., 2). The day was called the Lord's Day; thus (Rev. i., 10), I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day (iv τñ kupiakŋ hμepą). The Lord's Day gradually succeeded to the sacredness which the Jewish Sabbath had before possessed. When we pass from the New Testament to succeeding Christian writers, we find distinct notices of this universal Christian usage. Thus Justin Martyr, in the Second Century (Apol. II., p. 98), On the day which is called Sunday (τῇ τοῦ ἡλίου λεγομένῃ ἡμερὰ) there is an assembly of those who abide in the fields or in the city, and the narratives of the Apostles are read, and the writings of the prophets; and he states, as the reason of this observance, that they thus celebrate the day on which God divided the light from the darkness, and Christ rose from the dead. Tertullian recommends the ob servance of the day in times of persecution, after the manner of the Aposties, who were protected by their faith. From this period, there is no difficulty in tracing the Observance of the Lord's day, as a Catholic usage of the Christian Church. 760. The Jewish Sabbath was an ordinance of Divine Authority, being appointed in the Fourth of the Ten Commandments. Some Christian writers have identified the Lord's Day with the Jewish Sabbath; and, asserting the Fourth Commandment to be binding on Christians, have claimed Divine authority for the Christian Sabbath; while other writers, deny. ing that the Sabbath is thus commanded to Christians, have pronounced the Lord's Day a mere human law. We have seen that the Lord's Day is a Catholic and Apostolic Ordinance; resting in part also upon the Jewish Revelation. Such an Ordinance may be conceived as having something intermediate between an entirely divine and a merely human authority. We shall therefore make a few remarks upon the two extreme opinions just stated. 761. We have already said that Christ and his Apostles taught, clearly and emphatically, that the Jewish ordinances were blotted out by the Christian revelation. We may add that the Sabbath-days are expressly mentioned (Col. ii., 16), in the enumeration of things in respect of which the Christians were not to be judged. Christ taught (Matth. xii., 1. Mark ii., 23. Luke vi., 1), The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; and that the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath. So (John v., 17) he claimed authority over the Sabbath, as being the Son of God. Some Christian writers think that when Christ (John v.) not only cured the sick man at the pool of Bethesda, on the Sabbathday, but bade him carry his bed; and when (John ix.) he not only restored the blind man to sight, but made clay on the Sabbath-day; he purposely violated the traditional rules of the Jewish Sabbath, thus asserting his Divine authority. But however this be, he appears to have especially chosen the Sabbath, as the occasion through which he was to show that the Spirit of Ordinances is of more importance than the Letter; and that he had the power to abolish mere Ordinances. 762. It is sometimes urged, that the Fourth of the Ten Commandments must be binding upon Christians because the other Nine are so. But to this we reply, that the Ten Commandments are not binding upon Christians because they are parts of the Law of Moses, but because they are parts of the Moral Law. Thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; are precepts which do not derive their authority from any special command, but from the moral nature which God has given to man. There are parts of the Ten Commandments, which are merely arbitrary, or local, or temporary, and ap. ply only to the ancient Jews. Such is the reason given for the Fifth Command; that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee; such is the command of absolute abstinence from labour on the Sabbath; such is the selection of the seventh day of the week for the day of rest, if that selection is really included in the Command. 763. I do not know that any Christian moralists hold that the Mosaical Form of the Sabbath Ordinance is binding upon Christians. From the first, and in all ages, the Lord's Day of the Christian Church has been observed in a manner quite different from the Sabbatical Observances of the Jews. The sum of the Mosaic command is Rest from labour; and though Reading of the Scripture and Public Worship grew out of this, these are no part of the Law. The strictness with which this command of Rest was intended to be enforced, appears from the narration in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Numbers; respecting the man who, while the Israelites were in the wilderness, was put to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath-day. In the Christian observance of the Lord's Day, on the contrary, Assemblies for the purpose of Religious Instruction, Worship, Prayer, and Works of Benevolence, were, from the first, the main point. It is very improbable that the first Christians, living constantly among the Jews, abstained from working and travelling on the first day of the week. We find (Acts xiii., 42; xvi., 13; xviii., 4) that St. Paul was in the habit of preaching on the seventh day of the week; thus conforming his habits of religious teaching to those of the Jews. 764. But if the Sabbath be not, for us, an ordinance resting on Divine Command, it is also not properly described as an ordinance peculiarly intended for the Jews. It is not only a Christian Ordinance of Catholic and Apostolic Authority, but is also recommended to the Christian Church by the manner in which it is spoken of in the Old Testament. The reason given for the religious observance of one day in seven; that God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh day; equally concerns all nations. The institution of the Sabbath by Divine Authority, is mentioned in connexion with the account of the Creation; and long before the Jews as a separate people are spoken of. (Gen. ii., 3), And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. This notice must strongly recommend the religious observance of a seventh day to all, who receive the Old Testament as an authoritative account of God's revealed will. And this remark would be applicable, even if we were to allow, as Dr. Paley contends, that the Sabbath was not observed by the Patriarchs before the time of Moses, and was instituted for the first time in the wilderness. But in reality this opinion appears to be untenable, as we shall endeavour to show. 765. In the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, we have the account referred to by Paley, which appears to him to contain the actual institution of the Sabbath. He quotes verse 23, in which Moses says |